By Memories Kept
by Black Jester
Summary: Collection of FFX drabbles. So far; Jecht, Auron, Yuna.
1. Counting Memories

Something I found in an old notebook and thought was worth to spend some time on - it's not fancy, and I don't think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever written, but I'm satisfied with the voice of it.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the placenames that appear in this fic; they belong to Square-Enix and I am taking no financial gain from this piece of fiction.

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I have been cursed with a good memory.

The smile on my wife's face, the tears in my little boy's eyes, the smiles of people I knew, things I can remember even when I'm so drunk I couldn't have another and still I keep drinking: partying so hard that even the parties have a hard time keeping up. I see my wife in the next whore, my boy in the miserable children in the corner, and I down another drink to wash away the memory and that stinging in my eyes I don't want to acknowledge.

I can still remember the look on your face, Auron, when you realised I'd claimed your predestined place. The position you had known was yours since you met Braska, the task you had trained for since you were young enough to believe in heroes, and then I come along; I, the foul-mouthed drunk steals your place, and then suddenly your purpose in life is gone.

I'm sorry, but you would have made a shitty Sin, my friend: you follow a corrupt religion that preaches peace and turns around to wage war even on its own, but you haven't sinned a day of your life. You're so pure of sin and wrongs that you'd make a nun cry in happiness.

No, now I'm lying again – you did sin once. When you fought to keep up with me among the drinks and the blaring sounds and the glittering lights of Luca's night-life. That was the most foolish thing you'd ever done; there's no man, no woman alive who can outdo me in that game. I partied as hard as I could but when the alcohol ran out, when my new-won friends left for greener pastures and I was still sober enough to stand, you tried to talk sense to me. It didn't work. I was too far gone to listen to you, even if your words were the sanest I'd heard since I left Zanarkand. Something in your voice, even though it dripped with exasperation, was blessedly _real_.

The booze ran through my veins like poison, and I didn't listen to you even if I should have. Overcome by my drunken blues and perhaps gone a little mad I climbed up on the railing of that bridge and threatened to jump. I can remember it so clearly that the night winds still bite through my body, in this place where there's no wind to blow – I was weaving from side to side like a crazy spinning-top and you were shouting at me to get down, that this was foolish, but I just laughed at you like I always did.

Then it happened. Out of the blue, out of the booze and the black depression that only comes at five in the morning after too many glasses of whiskey, it happened.

You spent the next day in the temple, punishing yourself for your sin. I competed in the local Blitz tournament.

That's why I'm Sin and you're not.

You honestly regretted what you had done, beating yourself over the head with your hypocritical religion's rigid rules. The only thing I regretted was that you'd stopped.

It's been ten years, and you know what? Things are getting too dreary for me – there's nothing to drink here, nothing to eat, no one to party with and no one to talk to when the heartaches get too much, and the bitter taste in my mouth tastes like hangovers and cigarettes.

There's nothing to do in this forsaken place but to remember.

When this is all over I'll buy us a drink and then, Auron, then we'll party until we can't remember our names.


	2. Coming to Sleep

I was going through old notebooks and found this piece, along with many others which I intend to burn, but this one passed my critical eyes. I hope you like it. I am adding it to the Jecht-piece simply because I think they fit well together, but they should be read separately instead of being considered two chapters of the same thing.

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or placenames that appear in this fic: they all belong to Square-Enix and I am taking no financial gain from this piece of fiction.

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"_This is your world now..."_

It was long since it had been his: he had done his time, served long enough. For ten long years he had wandered Spira waiting for the arrival of a dream, wondering whether he had made the right choice in lingering on.

The dream had come, in the form of a child unaware of his own existence, the dream of the Fayth who dreamed of long-gone Zanarkand, the city lost a thousand years ago. He was fortunate to have seen it twice in a lifetime when many never saw it once, but he would gladly trade that privilege for one less experience. In that city he had lost his life, lost his breath, and gained a hollow promise.

Life as an unsent had been restless.

There wasn't a road in Spira that he hadn't travelled, no path unknown. From the temples in Besaid, the domed roofs that housed hope, to the vast, torn plains of the Calm Lands where generations before him had met the threat of Sin, to the silent peaks of Mount Gagazet, the holy mountain that kissed the sky.

He had watched the lives of Al Bhed in the scorching sands, the quiet existence of the Guado hidden away from the sun and men living each day in the fear that it might be their last.

Blitzball games he had never had time to watch before he had watched now, he'd seen places he had never seen, he had met, seemingly, everyone alive in the world. He had lived more after his death than he ever had while alive, but it had been hollow living. The sun had risen and set on cold bones and dead eyes, and he had waited.

But it was over now. It was ultimately, irrevocably over.

No more fighting to keep the illusion alive. No more frightened search for a heartbeat that wasn't there. Tomorrow would come and he would not be present to watch it crawl over the horizon.

The last few weeks of his existence had been hectic, tiring without one moment of peace. Faces both familiar and unknown had passed before his gaze, and he had learned anew. Religion had become a word for hypocrisy, solemn sorrow came with a million belts and a smile like a razor blade, and he guarded once more the hope, the light of the spiralling world.

The dream had come and with it the end of his unsent life.

It was time to join Jecht in the Farplane, to finally rest his weary bones, put down his katana and catch up on days past.

"_It has been long enough...."_


	3. Kilika Dusk

This is my first-ever real drabble; one hundred words exactly (not counting A/N and disclaimer). I've decided to keep all of my short, drabble-esque FFX pieces here.

Disclaimer; I do not own any of the characters or placenames depicted herein, and I am deriving no money from this work of fiction.

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Spinning, cluthcing the Summoner's staff.. Sing softly, go not gently on the nightmares; Send them gracefully away. 

No fire burns, no trumpet sounds, dancer of the dead; a silent song, a quiet farewell to see them on their way. Seventeen ways to kill a man, they understand; this is the way of the world.

_...people die..._

Sin is born from the shadows of the blackened dead. Tears disappear, scars do not, dancing over the water like a wide eyed messiah

Spira thinks that pyreflies are pretty.

_Spira is still wrong._


End file.
